Global NewsFinancial technology start-ups have typically been portrayed as a band of t-shirt-clad geeks poised to snatch food off the dinner plates of the button-collared bankers.
So it may have come as a surprise to some when, rather than going head-to-head with the Bay Street behemoths, so-called fintech companies started partnering with the very incumbents they had set out to upheave.
Over the past year, chief executives at some of Canada's biggest banks have acknowledged the competitive threat posed by tech-savvy entrants.READ MORE

CTV NewsThis Christmas, as consumers around the world hope Santa will give them a smartphone, TV or tablet computer, few people know that the lowly carrot inspired the liquid crystals at the core of such high-tech gadgets.
And the world's leading supplier of liquid crystals is a German company, the world's oldest chemicals and pharmaceuticals maker, Merck KGaA in the western city of Darmstadt.
Merck claims it produces "more than 60 per cent" of all liquid crystals sold worldwide, far ahead of Japanese rivals JNC and DIC and emerging competitors from China.READ MORE

CBC NewsFor the first time, NASA has publicly shown off a $15 million quantum computer made by a B.C. company and the lab where it's housed.
NASA invited media to tour its Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at its Ames Research Center in California's Moffett Field. The lab is equipped with a D-Wave Two, made by Burnaby-based D-Wave. The device was purchased in 2013 via a partnership with Google and Universities Space Research Association. READ MORE

Las Vegas Review-JournalA new mining boom is taking shape in Nevada, one focused not on gold and silver, but brines and clay containing an element critical to a 21st century world.
Interest in Nevada's lithium supplies spiked after Tesla Motors chose the Northern Nevada desert as the site for its $5 billion lithium-ion battery factory, a joint venture with Japanese company Panasonic.
Elon Musk, Tesla's billionaire CEO, said mass production of the batteries is key to his goal of making the company's fast and sexy electric cars affordable to the general public.READ MORE

Wall Street JournalThe recent food outbreaks of norovirus at Chipotle Mexican Grill are a reminder that one in six people in the U.S. experience food poisoning every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 128,000 are hospitalized for it. Add to that all the other hazards in our food—carcinogens, pesticides, mislabeling of everything from seafood to meatballs — and you realize that in the U.S., the price of cheap and bountiful food is an array of unsavory compromises.READ MORE

Phys.orgA new technology from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, could help companies and factories cut their energy bills by as much as 10 per cent. The new algorithm is able to analyse energy consumption by tapping on sensors in computer chips already found in equipment such as computers, servers, air conditioning systems and industrial machinery.
Such computer chips are needed for a host of functions such as to measure temperature, log data traffic and monitor the workload of computer processors.READ MORE

Digital TrendsGood news for all you chainsaw jugglers and magician assistants out there: A revolutionary new wound dressing device has just been cleared for civilian use. The XSTAT 30, as it's called, is designed to stop severe bleeding in a matter of seconds and prevent life-threatening blood loss in areas of the body that can't easily be treated with a tourniquet — such as the chest or armpit. The United States Army has been testing the device on the battlefield for the better part of 2015, and now that it's been proven safe and effective.
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